Tag Archives for police lawlessness

San Diego police responding to a domestic disturbance call went to the wrong address, where one of them killed the homeowner’s service dog. Ian Anderson said that when he opened the door after the officers knocked, his dog came up behind him. One of the officers reached down to pet the dog. The other stepped back, drew his weapon and shot the dog.

To serve and protect, this is what the police force is supposed to do. But in the recent past, police brutality has been highlighted in various high profile incidents, from Ferguson, to New York and recently to Philadelphia.

Najee Rivera was framed by two officers of Philadelphia PD. They charged him for aggravated assault when they were the ones who assaulted him. A video found by his girlfriend proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the police officers had falsified their report and brutally beaten up this man.

Najee settled with the PD for $200k and the DA has committed to prosecuting the police officers to the full extent of the law. Despite the damning video evidence, the police officers through their lawyers are looking to prove their innocence in court.

I understand that the police has to deal with an extreme amount of pressure on the streets. Gang wars, drugs, thieves and carries…

The NAACP is threatening to sue the city of Seattle after a police officer pepper sprayed a teacher who’d just given a speech at a Martin Luther King Jr. rally. Video shows Jesse Hagopian walking and talking on his cellphone, committing no obvious crime, when the officer sprayed him.

The sliding glass door at Dawn Bryan’s Lithia, Florida, home is still broken, and the walls still have bullet holes in them. But the neighbor and a friend who caused the damage shooting a rifle in the neighbor’s backyard haven’t been charged. Maybe because the neighbor is a county firefighter and his friend is a detention officer with and son of a major in the Hillsborough County sheriff’s office, the agency that investigated the shooting.

When a Victoria, Texas, police officer stopped Pete Vasquez, 76, for an expired inspection sticker, Vasquez pointed to the dealer tag on the car and tried to explain that it was legally exempt from inspection. But Nathanial Robinson wasn’t hearing any of it. He grabbed Vasquez to handcuff him, and when Vasquez pulled away, Robinson tried to push him down on the hood of his patrol car, then tossed him to the ground and Tasered him twice.

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was choked to death by a New York City policeman. On December 3, 2014, a grand jury chose not to indict the officer who killed him. And unlike the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, which was murky and muddled at best, Garner’s completely unnecessary death was captured on video.

And what was his crime? As the video below shows (note: it is incredibly disturbing, so watch at your own risk), he wasn’t a mortal threat to anyone. He carried no weapons. He did not shove or attack any police officers in such a way to be considered an imminent threat to their health and safety.

No, his apparent crime was selling cigarettes without paying taxes on them. And for that, he was killed.